An electronic program guide (EPG) displays television programming information, on an attached television display, to a viewer. The hardware that creates the EPG display may reside within the television receiver, a video recorder, a cable TV set-top box, or it may be a separate unit. When the EPG display is activated, it allows a viewer to view programming information and interactively manipulate the displayed programming information with a remote control.
FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate a basic EPG display 20 as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,268, “User Interface for Television Schedule System”, issued Dec. 26, 1995, to Patrick Young et al. EPG display 20 is arranged as three columns 28, 30, 32, of cells one-half hour in duration, and twelve rows, each row corresponding to one channel listing in channel column 26. Time row 22 indicates broadcast time slots for each of columns 28, 30, and 32. A status row 24 shows details for the currently tuned channel, time, date, etc. Program cells 34 occupy one or more horizontally adjacent column cells, depending on the length of the program, and display a title indicating the program scheduled in that time slot.
A viewer selects channels for tuning, recording, etc. using a cursor control on their remote control. The cursor control moves a visible cursor 36 on EPG display 20. For instance, in FIG. 1 cursor 36 highlights the one-hour cell corresponding to the 11:00 and 11:30 AM timeslots on channel 5, for the program “The Young and the Restless”. In FIG. 2, the cursor has been moved up a row, highlighting the half-hour show “Golden Girls” on channel 4 at 11:00 AM.
Part of the invention of the '268 patent relates to the appearance and size of cursor 36. Instead of a cursor that jumps from program to program each time a viewer manipulates the cursor control sideways, the '268 patent uses a cursor that follows the underlying grid of cells corresponding to columns 28, 30, and 32. Thus a viewer who depressed a cursor right control while viewing the display of FIG. 1 would still be selecting the same program—but the solid portion of the cursor would move to the 11:30 AM time slot. On the other hand, a viewer who depressed the cursor right control while viewing the display of FIG. 2 would select a new program “News” at the 11:30 AM time slot. This cursor control mechanism is claimed to avoid abrupt changes in the screen appearance that are disconcerting to viewers, particularly where the cursor would move off the display unexpectedly and “page” to a new section of the EPG database.
A second feature of the '268 patent is also shown in FIG. 2. By pressing a button on their remote, a viewer can activate a program note overlay 38 containing details about the currently selected program. Depending on where the cursor appears o the display, the program note overlay 38 will appear either near the bottom or near the top of display 20.